Police use Predator drones for surveillance in North Dakota

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So you really don't think the U.S. is becoming more and more of a police state?

Armed with a search warrant, Nelson County Sheriff Kelly Janke went looking for six missing cows on the Brossart family farm in the early evening of June 23. Three men brandishing rifles chased him off, he said.

Janke knew the gunmen could be anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread in eastern North Dakota. Fearful of an armed standoff, he called in reinforcements from the state Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs from three other counties.

He also called in a Predator B drone.

As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated sensors under the nose helped pinpoint the three suspects and showed they were unarmed. Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator, the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare.

But that was just the start. Local police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations, officials said.

No big deal, you say? Police should use whatever means necessary to apprehend criminals? Please. Are you not paying attention as your privacy -- and indeed your freedom -- is being taken away from you without you even knowing it?

As John Cole writes: "[T]o those of you poo-pooing this and saying "how is this any different than a helicopter," in five to ten years when unmanned drones are flying all over your neighborhood surveilling and storing info at random, you can think back to mocking us privacy hysterics. I'm sure very similar arguments were made in years past about police needing armored vehicles and .50 cals and every locale needing a SWAT team armed to the teeth."

It's one thing, and then another thing, and then another thing, and each time you say, "oh, so what?" Well, it all adds up to something, doesn't it? It's bad enough that your phone is allowing you to be tracked, that you can't make any sort of transaction without being identified on the grid. Do you really want to live with drones flying overhead?

As Libby Spencer writes: "A police state doesn't happen overnight. Big changes happen in just such tiny incremental infringements. If we wait to express our concern until, like the Geneva Conventions, Posse Comitatus is rendered quaint, it will be too late."

Actually, it's probably too late already. And not just in North Dakota.

(photo)

Tea Partier’s nude photo drama fuels TSA paranoia

By Nicholas Wilbur

Baseless Paranoia isn't a Christian folk band, but if it were Michele Bachmann would be the lead singer.

The Tea Party representative from Minnesota recently added herself to the ever-growing list of Republicans who abhor the space-bubble etiquette violators known as TSA scanners. The reason was not constitutional in nature, surprisingly. It did include a riff about airport security privatization, not surprisingly. But mainly it was personal: Bachmann will avoid TSA scanners because she fears naked pictures of her will turn up on the Internet.

We have always known that there is a vein the size of a fire hose that pumps paranoia into the organs of the Tea Party. What we didn't know, until now, is that the 54-year-old founder of the Tea Party caucus in Congress is a World Wide Web virgin who so trembles at the unknown ether world that she has proposed handing over our national security to the unregulated whims of profit-based corporations in order to thwart potential voyeurs.

It will probably not calm this Heartland harpy to know that beyond the websites and blogs that spew left-wing propaganda, advocate atheism, denounce farm subsidies, demand logic-based political discourse, and lament the intellectual decline of the conservative demographic, there is also a cache of risqué photos of Bachmann already circulating the Internet.

And yes, some of them show the milk maid farm girl of the Breadbasket in the nude. Others show her drinking cocktails with suggestive expressions on her face. Another shows her in the seductive pose of pin-up model. A few show her as the subject of the Spanish Inquisition-era painting, The Naked Maja. And at least one shows her in the least flattering light of all – as a 54-year-old woman (wrinkles, stretch marks, sagging baby feeders, and all.) For all ye who hath grappled with the curse of curiosity, rest assured that none of the photos are worth viewing.

Nor would I recommend sharing the photos with Bachmann. That would be like giving The Origin of Species as a Kwanzaa gift to your creationist Catholic mother-in-law. It would be like showing a copy of the president's birth certificate to your Fox News-addicted grandfather. It would be like returning from a hunting trip and dropping an elk fetus on the dining room table for your six-year-old daughter to dissect as practice for achieving her dream of one day becoming a veterinarian.

Such brisk exposure to the World Wide Web might cast Bachmann into the solitary confinement of a priest's confession chamber for the rest of her life.

Then again, it would be irresponsible to become an enabler of such hyper-paranoia. The truth, as they say, will set you free. So perhaps we should free Bachmann of her ignorance and open her eyes to how ridiculous it is to criticize airport security on the hypothetical basis of leaked nude photos.

The fact is, TSA scanners make us cringe not because they are an infringement on our freedoms, but because we can't accept the fact that we are imperfect beings. We are a nation of fat people living in a hypersensitive society where a blemish is akin to sin, and we will stop at nothing and invest in anything to hide this reality from ourselves.

The makeup, the girdles, the loose-fitting clothing, the attempts by "big-boned" women to draw attention to their oversized breasts – via low-cut blouses and push-up bras – in hopes of drawing attention away from their oversized arses, thighs, and midriffs – these are all zealous yet failed attempts at over-emphasized vanity.

And if you're a man with a complex about having TSA workers mock your less than Herculean genitalia, do what others in your position have done: overcompensate with intelligence. With a million bucks in your pocket, you can hire your own airport security. With a trophy wife on your arm, self-esteem won't matter.

If you fear a grainy x-ray image of your figure being leaked to the web, stop eating at McDonald's, begin an exercise program more vigorous than lifting your fat ass out of the sofa for a second serving of Häagen-Dazs every night, and, most importantly, stop worrying about what you aren't.

As for Bachmann, she's a 54-year-old woman who has brought five beautiful children into the world. A lifetime supply of Victoria's Secret lingerie, Cover Girl, and Mary Kay will not turn you into a pencil-thin supermodel. So get over it. Web surfing voyeurs jacking off to ultrasound images of your pixilated silhouette should not be a source of paranoia.

Especially not when there are Kenyan colonialists turning this country into a socialist state populated by pot-smoking liberals bent on upending the Constitution and stomping on the graves of our Founding Fathers. Get your fucking priorities straight.

There's no need to start calling for Israeli interrogation-style airport security just because our body parts don't point in the same direction they did as vestal maidens and strapping young lads.

I can promise that a TSA image of Michele Bachmann wouldn't go viral. Most of us already know what a middle-aged woman looks like nude (we can all thank Kathy Bates for the hot tub scene in About Schmidt for that revelation).

We expect more from our elected representatives in the United States Congress than this.

(Cross-posted from Muddy Politics.)

Things that ring in the night

By Capt. Fogg

If there is any part of "our freedoms" that must be defended more than the right to risk irreparable disaster for profit, the right to sell fraudulent securities, bogus debt reduction plans and to buy election results, it's the right to harass people at all hours of the day and night in their homes, in their cars and at work in the process of fleecing them.

Yes, there are laws regulating telemarketing: no call lists, restrictions on times called, restrictions on robocalls that tie up the line until they're through telling you how evil Nancy Pelosi is or how they can get you out of debt by lending you more money at 400% interest. These laws are scrupulously ignored and lawbreakers are carefully protected by the phone companies who in turn are allowed to buy the privilege of ignoring not only the law, but common decency. Virtually all these calls, including the call that woke me at 3:33 this morning are untraceable. "Hell-O - are you late in your mortgage payments???" I was ready to kill someone, but thanks to an FCC that is owned by the telecommunications industry, I'm not allowed to do what I would be allowed to do if someone in a black ski mask showed up in my bedroom at the same hour. That I don't have a mortgage and am not in debt adds a certain edge to the anger. That I only got 4 hours of sleep hasn't allowed it to dissipate.

I may have to give up my land line. Even in a non-election year, I average about 8 telemarketing calls every day, usually most frequent at 8 O'clock AM, again around dinner time with a late peak at 9 to 10 PM. It rings when I'm in the shower, in the pool, up on a ladder trimming trees or under my car changing the oil. Of course it's nearly twice as bad this year.

My number is registered on that most pathetic of places, the Federal no-call list. I wonder why I bothered to register it. So is my cell phone and yet every loan shark and financial con man sends me text messages and calls me at the most inopportune times, so I have to remain unreachable, which largely defeats the purpose of owning one. Yes, this continues when one is overseas and for some reason, candidates all over the country continue to call me even when I demand to be removed.

Of course, I'm just a crank with no knowledge of how evil Liberals are and no proof that the ever further to the right corporate shills still calling themselves Republicans aren't the cause of our woes. After all, it's just freedom I'm objecting to and the will of the proletariat is that the will of the corporations be the law -- and isn't it typical of loser liberals like me to promote such Communo/Fascist ideas like a right to be left alone by scam hawkers and sleazemongers and political flim flam artists who have a far greater right to use a service I pay for than I do.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

The trouble with Facebook

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Whoops:

The wife of the new head of MI6 has caused a major security breach and left his family exposed after publishing photographs and personal details on Facebook.

Sir John Sawers is due to take over as chief of the Secret Intelligence Service in November, putting him in charge of all of Britain’s spying operations abroad.

But entries by his wife Shelley on the social networking site have exposed potentially compromising details about where they live and work, their friends’ identities and where they spend their holidays. On the day her husband was appointed she congratulated him on the site using his codename “C”.

Lady Sawers had put virtually no privacy protection on her account, making it visible to any of the site’s 200m users around the world who choose to be in the open-access London social network on Facebook.

Wait. The trouble with Facebook? No, not so much. Rather, it's the trouble with Facebook users, some of whom, apparently, have not a clue. (Though perhaps Facebook should have strict privacy as the default setting. If I'm not mistaken, that is not presently the case.)

You'd think Sir John would have had a chat with his wife about security, no? Did he never question her about her Facebook account? Did it never come up?

The humanity and hypocrisy of Mark Sanford

By Michael J.W. Stickings

"Mark Sanford is no longer missing, but he's obviously lost." So writes Slate's John Dickerson to open an article on the Mark Sanford saga that, in light of what we learned yesterday, adds some much-needed humanity, largely out of respect to Sanford's own humanity, to what has been, in some circles, a case of gleeful Schadenfreude.

It's an article that really got me thinking last night. Hopefully this makes sense.

I and many other bloggers and political commentators were making a big deal out of the Sanford saga. At first, though, it was rather easy to. The man upped and disappeared, ditching his security detail and not even telling his family where he was going over Father's Day weekend. Plus, it seemed like his office was lying, or that he'd been lying to his staff. (His wife said he was off writing. His staff said he was hiking. Surely there was inconsistency there.) And then there was the not-so-small matter of a sitting governor just leaving. It all seemed rather weird, and I think it was only proper to ask questions.

Which is the point that many observers were making, myself included: There were more questions than answers. What was needed was answers.

Well, the answers came yesterday, in an awkward and uncomfortable press conference, a confession in front of the press, and, yes, Sanford revealed himself to be... a human being -- deeply flawed, perhaps, or perhaps even broken, but much like the rest of us all-too-human human beings.

And, yes, I do feel sorry for him. (He and his wife, Jenny, have separated. Read her statement here. I have been through too many personal difficulties of my own over the years not to be sympathetic. I do not envy them.)

Here at The Reaction, there was a difference of opinion with respect to whether even to cover the saga in the first place (with me writing extensively on it, prior to Sanford's return, and Carl arguing yesterday that Sanford's philandering is simply not "within bounds").

The saga remains a huge story, though, and so we continue to cover it, but, now that we know what happened, more or less, we can acknowledge that it's really none of our business. Sanford's personal troubles, I mean. He will have to live with what he has done, and his family will have to try to recover. It doesn't seem quite as funny, though it remains rather disturbing, that he took off for Argentina while his staff, clueless or covering up, put him somewhere on the Appalachian Trail.

Where there is an issue, though, is with the hypocrisy of conservative Republicans who talk family values but don't live up to the talk. It's an old story, yes, and there are many of them: Vitter, Foley, Ensign, Gingrich, etc.

To me, that is the story, or a big part of it, and it is what separates liberals from conservatives. Liberals and Democrats have, to be sure, found themselves at the center of media storms over their philandering: Clinton, Edwards, etc. But neither Clinton nor Edwards was a moralist or a theocrat. They revealed themselves to be flawed human beings, but they didn't promote conservative "family values." There was no hypocrisy.

"The State has no place in the bedroom of the nation," said Pierre Trudeau, one of Canada's greatest prime ministers, and, to me, that applies to all of us. The nation -- the people -- has no place in anyone's bedroom, unless there is harm being done, unless there is just cause to intervene.

In this case, we have no place in Sanford's bedroom, or in the middle of his family. What he did in private, in Argentina or elsewhere, is his business -- and his family's. But what he did in public -- the executive of a state using state property, and temporarily leaving the state on personal business without, it would seem, informing all those who needed to know, as well as what he has said and the policies he has supported as an elected official, namely, the moralism of the right -- well, that's the people's business, too, especially so in a democracy.

Liberals, in particular, should respect the public/private divide and give Sanford space. It makes no sense, and it is just plain ugly, to gloat over the very human failings of another human being. But I think we are right to point to the hypocrisy, and to marvel at the arrogance of one who forces his morality on everyone but himself.

It appears that women may actually have a right to bodily privacy in NY

By LindaBeth

According to Thursday’s New York Times, a woman who was upskirt-photographed in a NY subway station (and was able to capture her assailant’s identity on her camera!) has successfully filed criminal charges against him:

Mr. Olivieri was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on Wednesday on misdemeanor charges of unlawful surveillance, attempted sexual abuse and harassment, a criminal complaint said.

That he was arraigned is surely excellent news, since in many other jurisdictions, women bodies are public property, with no expectation of personal privacy in public. Even more, it was the taking of photos that brought the criminal charges, not their distributing. In some conversations on my main blog around this pet peeve issue of mine, some have suggested that posting the images should be wrong, but that the taking of them in public is and ought to be completely legal.

This NY case indicates that the “wrong” done is in the violation of the photographing; “unauthorized surveillance” seems to indicate that a woman’s body, regardless of its location, is always a zone of privacy. And to that I say an emphatic “yes”!

More past posts on bodily privacy

(Cross-posted to Smart Like Me.)

Women’s bodies are not public domain: part 2 of 2

By LindaBeth

Read part 1 here

After posting that first post, I checked back on the Hoyden thread’s discussion, and sure enough a douchebag had entered the discussion, reeking with male privilege. I really couldn’t let his fallacious comments go unaddressed, so I commented on the thread, and wanted to post what I wrote here as well, since this is a topic I am very passionate about and I write about often.

So again, from Hoyden About Town (and I encourage you to check out the thread and the blog, it’s good reading):

Anders Feder

Jul 17th, 2008 at 12:00 pm

Pete:
Apart from the lameness, there is absolutely nothing wrong in posting a picture of an unidentifiable person’s legs.

Suggesting that I am a ‘fellow sociopath-wannabe’ for standing up for reasonable freedoms of expression, on the other hand, is highly questionable.

Oh, and by the way: I demand that you all ask for my permission before responding to this post directly or indirectly. Anything else will offend me.

My response:

lindabeth

Jul 18th, 2008 at 9:34 am

I really have to respond to what Anders said:

Apart from the lameness, there is absolutely nothing wrong in posting a picture of an unidentifiable person’s legs.

The unidentifiability is not the issue here. It’s the lack of consent to be photographed and the lack of consent to have the photograph distributed online.

Suggesting that I am a ‘fellow sociopath-wannabe’ for standing up for reasonable freedoms of expression, on the other hand, is highly questionable.

This is my main beef with what you say. “Freedom of expression” NEVER becomes an issue here, because freedom of expression implies some sort of ownership involved: your art, your words, your text. Photographing a woman, attempting to photograph up her shirt, no less, without her consent, and publishing it online, also without her consent, does not give any legitimate ownership of her body’s representation to this guy.

This is an issue of (the woman’s) privacy, and to be honest, her goddamm right to exist as a human being in public without being unknowingly immortalized online as a sexual thing (right? “just a pair of legs”) and NOT at all an issue of expression. It would be an issue of expression if he asked the woman to photograph her and asked her if she minded him posting it on his blog and she agreed, and if the same reaction ensued. But our reaction is not over the image’s content per se–expression–but rather over the “who do you think you are?” that he felt the right to a) take the pic in the 1st place, b) publish it online, and c) place it in an even further sexualized context through his commentary.

You, however, exhibit in gobs male privilege and an arrogant sense of entitlement over women’s bodies if you think that by a woman daring to be in public “like that” her body is up for grabs to be “owned” (by being photographed), sexualized (despite her desire to simply exist in the world as a female human being), and then displayed online for all to see and continue to sexualize her body, fetishizing her humanity’s absence (her face).

Her legs are her legs, her body is her body, and she decides what will be done with it, not you or anyone else. They are part of her, as a human being, and are not not not public domain. I don’t know why this is so hard for men especially to understand!

Your idea that the photo’s “anonymity” makes it alright, shows how much women have been dehumanized in western culture to the point that our only humanity is in our faces. Everything else, according to you, is just an think to sexualize, and is up for public ownership, so long as we women “dare” to be in public at all.

Your victim-blaming aside (she;s acking to be sexualized, because clearly in your male privilege-laced fantasy world all women dress solely for men’s visual benefit and according to the degree they want to be sexualized, c’mon… think about the “possible views” when a woman is sitting down on a bus with even a professional, just-above-the-knee skirt and her legs crossed. A professionally dressed woman would likely appear like this, so how dare you suggest that the very act of her taking the bus in any clothing that might show some leg means she’s up for grabs. bullshit.)

Oh, and by the way: I demand that you all ask for my permission before responding to this post directly or indirectly. Anything else will offend me.

Actually–wrong. By commenting on this blog you are consenting to discussion. That’s part of the rules of engagement in the blogging medium. She walked outside of her house. Into her community. And traveled by public transportation as a human being and community member. That is not consent to anything. You have consented to this activity; she did not consent to his activity. That is the crucial difference.

I know I rail on this issue a lot, and it might seem a small thing on The List of important issues. But I think this is very important: it says an awful lot about what women’s “place” is, who has rights to women’s bodies, and to what degree to women own their own person; in other words, to what extent are women really Lockean liberal subjects, who own property in their own person?? To me, this is an important question that has implications for all sort of women’s issues–issues legal equality (”rights”) and issues of social equality.

As I’ve said before, I don’t know what to do about it, practically speaking. For one, how could you stop people from doing thing things you aren’t aware of! And second, the internet is so expansive that making a law that make this kind of crap illegal would do little to stop it–because it could only be stopped if the person photographed, or someone they knew, actually saw it.

It’s more reasonable to attack the root cause of this: that in our society, women** do not own the right to their bodies in public, and increasingly in private. This is what needs to change. As I said above too, why can’t people leave other people alone? That’s still true, but this isn’t just an individual issue; it’s a cultural one, exacerbated by recent technology that makes this nearly impossible to solve through law. There has to be a paradigm change in the discourse on women’s bodies. And is this not part of the unfinished sexual revolution? I think so.

**And I know this kind of thing affects men too, mostly in the celebrity world, but the entitlement attitude repeatedly comes from men about women, and I think it’s more a gender issue than, say the celebrity/paparazzi issue is. Although that, too, is about public “ownership,” and while it affects male celebs too, again, it affects women disproportionately more.

(Cross-posted to Smart Like Me.)

Women’s bodies are not public domain: part 1 of 2

By LindaBeth

There is a really great post at Hoyden About Town on a recent incident of a man photographing an “upskirt” shot in public, and posting it online. The comments she lists in the post are really great…the first set makes you smile and the second makes you pissed.

But reading these particular comments from the skeevy guy’s post got me thinking:

• “He photographed in public a nice pair of legs and he added the photo onto he’s [sic] PERSONAL blog”

I read a lot people justifying various breeches of privacy with the excuse of “well, she’s in public.” What is it about public space that means anything goes? “Public” space only means anyone can be there–no one can be refused to be in public space. How does “anyone can be there” translate to “anyone can be there and should understand that at any minute they could be photographed or videotaped doing whatever they are doing and wearing whatever they are wearing and can be distributed in any context for free and by entering public space people are consenting to this.”

You know honestly, I don’t care whether some dude videotapes a woman bending over to pick up something she dropped or a person eating their lunch on a bench, both are wrong. Both are invasions. Why do people feel the right to photograph people they don’t know and post them online? Photos of any content, displayed in any context. Why does anybody think this is ok? And why does being in public mean you cede the right to own your body? I’m starting to get really irritated with the arrogance and entitlement of these justifiers.

And it’s not as if people can help being in public. You can’t feasibly survive without leaving your house.

• “Nicu didn’t try to photograph anything that the girl wanted to keep hidden.”

For the nth time, since when is allowing to be visible for fleeting glances the same as allowing to be visible for photographic capture and display online? This would be like saying that all women who go to the beach are consenting to or want to or wouldn’t mind photos of them in said suit posted online. All together ladies: “HELL, NO!” How asinine is this reasoning?

I mean geez, how hard is it to just leave people alone? Live and let be? Seriously?!

Stay tuned for part 2.

(Cross-posted to Smart Like Me.)

WTF of the Day: Yet another personal privacy violation

By LindaBeth

From the Daily Mail:

A woman claims her life has been ruined by someone who set up a Facebook website page in her name describing her as a vice girl.

Kerry Harvey, 23, says she received obscene pictures on her mobile phone and unsolicited calls from would-be ‘punters’.

The forged profile featured her photograph, correct date of birth, middle name and mobile number, listing her job as ‘prostitute’.

The Facebook page is down now, but this is especially disheartening:

She also reported the abuse to police but was told it would cost too much to track the culprit.

Not to mention this classic blame-the-victim:

‘Generally, people can try and avoid false profile pages by posting as little personal information as possible - not just on social networking sites but anywhere on the net.’

This is nearly impossible. A Google search of your name gets you your address very easily. And if you’ve ever done anything interesting enough to be reported in a newspaper, then be damned! We must not live too publicly, we must pretty much live in a hole and not interact outside of face-to-face contact. Not that that would be a bad thing, especially in today’s society. But I’m really sick of this attitude that it’s our responsibility to have our lives completely offline to avoid this kind of thing…all too much like the “her clothing meant she was asking for it” rape apology. Theft is still theft even if your house is unlocked.

It is far to easy to use the internet as revenge and exploitation. The article lists several examples of online fraud. Add to these the high profile case of the Myspace hoax created by a mother-and-daughter that negligently caused the suicide of a young girl, the all-too-often posting of sexual photos and videos of ex-partners without any consent (and I’ve personally only ever seen women’s likenesses posted), and as I’ve written about previously, we clearly have a social problem. It seems that teens and young adults are hurt more than anyone, and that women are disproportionately affected. We need a solution that takes into account the realities of 21st century life and technology. And we need it before more (women’s) lives are ruined.

And gee, it wouldn’t hurt if women’s identities and reputations weren’t so problematically inseparable from their identity as a human being. That would be nice too.

(Cross-posted to Smart Like Me.)

"Open Season" for 'Peeping Toms'; or, musings on "privacy"

By LindaBeth

This post has been a long time coming, but this recent news put me over the edge: Remember back in March when I wrote about the Oklahoma Peeping Tom? He took cel phone photos up a minor's skirt while shopping at Target; the charges were dropped because their Peeping Tom law only applies to situations where privacy is expected, and according to the ruling, privacy cannot be expected in public.

Well, it happened again. Via feministing, a Florida court dropped charges against a man for using a mirror to look up a woman's skirt at a Barnes and Noble.

The key in these cases is "a reasonable expectation of privacy." We ladies should be getting the message loud and clear now: we cannot expect bodily privacy in public. We cannot merely exist in public. In public, our bodies are subject to public ownership. We can only expect privacy in our homes. And in a marriage situation, some people don't even think we should have that.

Twice now in the courts, and resonant with a culture that sees catcalling as a compliment or that thinks women like Uma Thurman should be flattered at stalking and unwanted sexual advances (because I s'ppose we should be thankful we're oh so irresistable?!), it is becoming more and more clear that women appearing in public are open for the business of sexual consumption via harassment and now even more violations of physical privacy and integrity. The assumption is that any woman who is attractive or dresses sexy desires ogling...otherwise she wouldn't dress that way, or wear a skirt short enough to photograph up it. (Gee, isn't this all starting to sound an awful lot like most rape apologists?) And that women who dare to exist in public or online or anywhere where they can be viewed by someone are fair game for subsequent sexual remarks, objectification, physical criticism, circulation of images...

Because apparently:

• all women are heterosexual (since they dress "like that" for male attention)


• all women dress themselves according to how and when they want their physical appearance to be evaluated


• all women's public existence is primarily and ultimately for the benefit of men

I've been thinking a lot about this recently, mostly regarding how people seem to lose all personal privacy upon public existence. In a culture like ours that sees women primarily as sexual objects, that any woman becomes subject to harsh criticism or objectification regarding their appearance (regardless of its relevance), this is becoming a huge problem for women. Pragmatically, we seem to have very little expectation of consent to our images being taken, and also taken out of context.

For example, if a woman signs a model release for nude artistic photography, she is consenting to a particular context of the images. The images cannot then be sold as pornography, or she would have grounds to sue. This type of consent does not seem to operate in the real world in the age of the internet. And if it does, considering the vastness of the internet, it seems hard to keep tabs on.

Let me provide some actual examples that have gotten me pissed off:

#1: Last summer, a photograph of track athlete Allison Stokke ran in her local paper. In the photo, she's adjusting her hair elastic after an event, and since she's reaching up, a bit of her midriff is bare. A widely-read blogger got a hold of the seemingly-innocuous photo and posted it on their blog along with sexual lewd commentary, which the blog commenters chimed in with. The photo continued to be picked up on other blogs with similar ensuing objectification and sexual commentary. Before she knew it, men were leering and making sexual remarks at her photograph all over the web. In other words, internet harassment. From Wa-Po:

Stokke read on message boards that dozens of anonymous strangers had turned her picture into the background image on their computers. She felt violated. It was like becoming the victim of a crime, Stokke said. Her body had been stolen and turned into a public commodity, critiqued in fan forums devoted to everything from hip-hop to Hollywood [...] the unofficial Allison Stokke fan page [...] complete with a rolling slideshow of 12 pictures; to the fan group on MySpace, with about 1,000 members; to the message boards and chat forums where hundreds of anonymous users looked at Stokke's picture and posted sexual fantasies.

She and her family are upset, but there's nothing they can do about it. It's technically not illegal. And now every time she competes, she has to wonder about what the cameras might have captured.

#2: I recently read a post from a blogger and Crossfitter who was irked by the rampant sexism on the site. If you go to the site you will see that in the video where the female athlete is dressed in a way that makes it visually apparent that she has sexually desirable physical attributes, she is unabashedly objectified throughout the post. Never mind that athletic activity typically requires fitted clothing. Never mind that the site is to discuss athleticism. If you have large breasts and they can be noticed, be prepared for them to be discussed and for your body to be discussed in terms of sexuality.

One commenter said "lets be honest. If she didn't like the reaction she would have worn something else. Plenty of workout gear out there with coverage. Lighten up" (hmm where have we heard this before?)

Another aptly replied:

23's point (I think) is not whether or not the given individual likes "the attention," it's whether or not giving that sort of attention will attract women to crossfit. I think it won't help, generally speaking. There's a reason Curves exists, and it has little to do with the effectiveness of the workout program.

The bottom line is that treating women as sexual beings is not by itself offensive. But treating women as sexual beings when they would prefer not to be is offensive. So when a woman says "Don't treat me as a sexual being" saying "lighten up" misses the point a little.

Right on. There's so many things that are wrong about the comments there (like confusing a compliment with degrading objectification), but I'm going to let that be for now. (But see my concluding point for more on treating women as sex objects only when that is the context of how they are presenting themselves.)

#3: I've also stumbled on this guy's flickr page where he's essentially stolen images of girls on "public" domains such as Flickr, Photobucket, Myspace, Facebook, etc. that he thinks are sexy and has removed them from their original context and place them into a sexualized ones. In other words, images that might have just been images from a birthday party are turned into ogling fodder on this site. I am not linking to it for ethical reasons, but this is his own quote:

The majority of my images have been appropriated from public image sharing repositories. If you happen to find yourself among them, my wish is that you will graciously accept the compliment. It generally means that I have fallen in love with you at first sight. Alternatively, if you would like your image removed, please contact me and it will be done immediately [...]

This appears to be considerate at first, but think for a few seconds and you will realize it's a cop-out. If he really cared about what the women wanted, why wouldn't he contact them first, thereby getting explicit consent? Most "public domains" (Flikr, Photobucket, Myspace, etc.) have a way to contact the site owner. He doesn't do so because he doesn't care. They are online, and therefore may be taken and used in whatever context he pleases, and he's banking on that the women don't find out. How has implicit consent gotten such a foothold in our culture?? And isn't it charming this is supposed to be taken as flattery and not as a violation?

Now I can hear the objections: don't put the pictures up... blah blah. Now, I think people should take precautions like making pages private when they can. But to be honest, that's a bullshit argument:

• I think most people have the assumption of privacy and ownership of their personal information. I think most reasonable people (at least initially) think that when they post photos online, that sure, anyone can view them, but that it would be unethical an inappropriate for someone to steal them and reproduce them in other contexts that are personally degrading. It may not be illegal and I'm not really the censorship kind of gal. But until several months ago, it never even dawned on me that people might repost my images to be sexualized and leered over...until I started reading crap like this.


• People should take precautions but that doesn't absolve the people who do this shit from basic assholery.


• And many times, these images are being taken out of context. Or may be posted on a friend's page, not by the person themselves. There is no way that a person can, say, attend a party and really be expected to inform every single person there with a digital camera to not post any images with them in it online. What's the alternative-don't attend (large) parties? Don't wear pretty or sexy outfits? Don't be attractive? Don't "get" your photo taken (as if we have full control over this)? Who's fucking freedom are we protecting here??

Like I said, I'm not really the censorship type, and I don't know what the solution is--except why can't people just be decent human beings (and the "f" word-feminism-might be useful too)--but it seems like a hell of a lot of womens' rights are being infringed on here. Now I know this could be done to men too, but with our objectifying and sexualizing women at every opportunity culture, this clearly is affecting women more.

What gets me the most is this: all the excuses, reasons, justifications for all this crap has underlying it the assumption that women do things with men's attention in mind. We never do things for ourselves. We dress for the spectacle, not because we look good in an outfit. We post images because we want, or don't mind, men making sexual comments about them. We wear skirts in public because we understand and it doesn't bother us that men might look up our skirts. We engage in polite conversation, or flirt, because we want to have sex. We wear a sexy outfit because we want to have sex...with you. It is wrongly assumed that we act first with you (men, society, whatev) in mind, and that we do not act in ways that please us. (women...have pleasure...outside of men's approval? Impossible!) We have no right to just exist.

I have an idea. Can we not treat women as things that exist for your scopophilic pleasure unless they are paid to do so?? Or at least (and most practically), can we keep it private? As in, between you and your buddy? NOT on the internet? NOT via picture mail on the cel phones? Models are paid to be looked at. Ogle them all you want. Critique and objectify their body all you want. I don't fucking care. They, if anybody, are the ones "asking for it". Don't do it to athletes. Don't do it to politicians. Don't do it to moms. Don't do it to feminist writers. Don't do it to the woman you were able to sneak a photo of walking down the street. And by god, leave the kids' facebook and myspace pages alone. As a civilized society (?) we should be able to post pics of our 18th birthday party for our friends to see without becoming internet-wide sexual fodder. People should be able to be decent, respectful, and respectable human beings. Why is the onus on us to "protect ourselves" in order for people to be decent human beings???

And while we're at it, how about trying some affirmative consent, shall we?

I'm getting so sick of this crap.

(Cross-posted to Smart Like Me)

Like your right to bodily privacy? Don't go to Oklahoma

Guest post by LindaBeth

I'd like to welcome a new guest blogger to The Reaction. A former student of mine from the Univ. of Toronto, LindaBeth is currently a graduate student at the Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism at the University of Western Ontario. Her thesis is a discourse analysis of the normative structure marriage in the U.S., examining the rhetoric on both sides of the same-sex marriage debate and looking at how several socio-political institutions both produce and depend on normative marriage for their viability and legitimacy. And she's a blogger, too: don't ya wish your girlfriend was smart like me? offers "cultural commentary and media analysis with a shot of feminism and a twist of wit," and it is always a great read.

I encourage you to check out her insightful and provocative blog and to welcome her to our community here at The Reaction. Her first post, on an outrageous court decision in Oklahoma, is below.

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The Feminist Daily News (Feminist Majority Foundation) reported this story (via The F-Word):

"Oklahoma Man Not Charged for Violating Privacy of 16 Year Old Girl"

Oklahoma's Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that taking pictures up someone's skirt in a public place is not a crime. The court voted 4-1 in favor of 34-year-old Riccardo Ferrante who was arrested for putting his camera up an unsuspecting 16-year-old girl’s skirt in a department store, reports the Associated Press... Ferrante was charged under Oklahoma's "Peeping Tom" statute, which makes such offenses felonies punishable of up to 5 years in prison. Tulsa World reports that the court ruled that the statute only applies in situations where the victims are in a reasonably private place such as their own homes, a restroom, or a locker room.

Quick thoughts:

• Clearly, sexual privacy doesn't seem to apply to when women are in public.
• What can of worms does this open up? Spycams in changing rooms? Can someone pull down your shirt as you're waiting for the bus? The implications of this ruling are absurd!
• She's 16-years old... WTF?!
• And this is all because she dared to wear a skirt in public that was short enough that a camera could be placed under that. Hear that ladies? If you're gonna leave the house, you'd better be wearing full-body armor! Enter the public sphere, and your sexual privacy belongs to everyone. But stay at home (ya know, where women belong), and you're fully protected.

I have been thinking a lot about women's right to privacy in public spaces, due to some recent stories and discoveries I've made, and I plan to write about it more extensively soon (keep an eye out!)... but, in the meantime, puke on this.